Title: Vampires, Demons, Aliens and the Air Conditioner, Oh MY!

Author: Gillian Silverlight

Distribution: My site: http://www.homestead.com/gilliansspikelair/, those that already have permission to post my fic, all others please ask. (If you post my fic. Please do not rearrange the sentence groupings. It can alter the flow of the story. Thanks.)

Disclaimer: They belong to Joss and the WB, UPN, FX; just about everybody except me. I just play with them.

Summary: A summer heat wave adds to the problems with a new case for Angel Investigations. The people they have to help are a bit.. odd as well.

Author’s Notes: For the sake of this fiction, the end of season 3 for AtS doesn’t exist. No Connor, Darla or estrangement between Wesley and anyone else.

Rating: NC-17

Addendum: I’m also answering the Star Crossed Summer of Love Contest August Challenge with this fiction.

The challenge is: 1. A fight between lovers

2. a record heat wave

3. at least one person from the couple must use the unbearable heat as

their excuse for why the fight happened

4. A make up session

5. A something special done by one half of the couple for the other half as a means of making up – a gift, dinner, etc – must be a surprise though.

Incorporate at least three of the following:

Mention of the powerpuff girls

A cold shower

High thread count Egyptian cotton sheets

A sexy piece of lingerie

Candles and lots of them

Pudding – any flavor

** Bonus points for using all six

**Winner of Week 11, The August Challenge and runner up for the GrandPrize Winner in the StarCrossed Summer of Love Contest**

Thank you Amy! You’re a sweetheart!

Vampires, Demons, Aliens and the Air Conditioner, Oh MY!

It was June 22^nd.

Summer hadn’t ‘happened’ or ‘descended’ in L.A. this year. It had hit the ground running… with both feet, then decided to do a bit of tap-dance for good measure.

The old air conditioner at the Hyperion had broken and the repairmen kept telling Angel over and over that all they could do was replace it. It was too old, too obsolete, to be repaired. Of course, the price they quoted for that replacement was enough to buy the hotel, but right about then, Cordelia Chase could have cared less.

She felt like she was melting.

Cordy knew she could sympathize with the wicked witch from Oz, because that was just how the curvaceous brunette felt.

The secretary for Angel Investigations had stationed herself in front of the two fans in the office, after she’d rearranged them to blow across her in a stifling cross-current. Still, the air was moving and it gave her the illusion of being somewhat cooler.

Out in the Lobby, she could hear Angel arguing with the latest repairman about the A/C.

*Angel, PLEASE just pay the man and make the heat STOP!! *

Cordelia begged silently.

Fred and Gunn had taken advantage of the recent lull in business to go visit Fred’s family for a couple of weeks. Even the bad guys were too hot to cause trouble!

Lorne was still in Vegas with the glitter and lights and of course.. the air conditioning!

Wesley had taken several days off to curl up at home with his own a/c after a nasty fall on the stairs… courtesy of a puddle created by the leak from the misbehaving air conditioning unit on the roof of the hotel.

Cordelia had heard enough of the harangue for today and slowly pulled herself from her chair, tugging a bit to make the vinyl release the backs of her legs just where her shorts ended.

She was actually walking toward Angel and the latest obstinate repairman when the vision hit.

Since becoming part demon, Cordy hadn’t been bothered with the headaches or fainting when a vision occurred as she used to be, but today… Well, of course, today would be different.

It was 101 degrees outside and no cooler inside. So today the vision decided to bring a friend with it and the dull ache spread through her head, centering on her temples.

Now, with the scenes of the vision playing over and over in her head, some obscure little man with a sledgehammer slamming the inside of her skull trying to break out, and the heat threatening to melt her right down into her thin, crochet sneakers, the strident voice of the repairman in the lobby was the final straw.

With one hand cradling her head, Cordelia stalked around the end of the large front counter toward Angel and the repairman, rising like a thunderstorm. Lightening glinted in her eyes and threatened to strike out and fry the next man who opened his mouth. Unfortunately they both had their mouths open as they watched her approach like the wrath of.. well, like the wrath of something! Fortunately, neither of them uttered a word.

“I have had enough of this!” Cordelia pointed at the appliance service tech.

“You! You get your narrow, smelly ass out of this hotel, go find some pants that don’t advertise the crack of your butt cheeks to the world and figure out a way to fix this damned air conditioner or I’ll personally ‘air condition’ you!”

The Wrath of Cordelia turned slowly to Angel.

“And you….! You.. you pointy toothed, tight-fisted, I-never-feel-the-heat vam….

Varmint! Get this thing fixed! I don’t care how you have to do it, just do it or you’re gonna be doing this next job all by yourself! And trust me.. we have a job we need to go do, so get Mr. ‘show-my-crack’ out of here or get him to work with you! I’ve had it!!”

Cordelia turned on the heel of one shoe, which promptly slipped off her sweaty foot and stomped to the kitchen wearing only the one remaining shoe.

Her departure was accompanied by the sound of two very male chins striking the tile floor in unison.

Angel regained his composure first, looked sheepishly at the other man and tried to apologize for his secretary.

“Uhhhhhh! I… uh, I’m… ah… She’s been really miserable in this heat, you know? Can you maybe check around and see if you can find us a bit better price to either fix or replace this a/c unit? Cause if you don’t find something I can live with… she’s gonna make my life as miserable as she is and then I’ll just have to send her over to your office instead. I’m sure you understand?”

“Ah, yeah… And you say she’s your secretary? Not your wife or girlfriend or boss or anything? Whoa! Bet she’s hell on collections!” The repairman simply gazed with admiration the direction the slender brunette had gone.

“Ah, yeah.. Just my secretary… but we’ve known each other for a long time. I’d really appreciate anything you can do.”

“Yeah.. I can see that. Ah, I’ll go check around and see if I can find someone who might have some old parts hanging around or … something. Maybe a witch doctor or two even.”

“No, tried that.. they can’t fix it either…” Angel simply sighed.

“They can’t… Oh, You’re pulling my leg! Good one there, Mr. Angel. Yeah, I’ll check around and give you a call in the morning.”

The man hitched up his too-small-in-the-waist pants and laughed gently as he slowly shook his head all the way out the door of the hotel.

Angel waited patiently until the man left, but before the door had completely closed, he’d turned and broken into a run to the kitchen, only to stop dead still in that sudden preternatural movement that only Master vampires can manage.

Cordelia stood in front of the refrigerator, the upper freezer compartment open as she leaned her head into the cool interior. She was carefully inching a semi-circular ice cube from the automatic ice maker into the center of her bra as she made ‘ooos and ahhhs’ that weren’t sure if they should be happy at the coolness or shocked at the sudden temperature change.

“Ah, Cordy… Are you okay? You had a vision about a new job?”

Angel struggled to keep his face neutral and his eyes in his head instead of thinking about where that bit of ice lay or trying to peek just… a little… bit….further.

“You better be glad I caught myself, Mister. At least I changed ‘vampire’ to ‘varmint’ and yes, we have a job.”

She tucked the next ice cube into the waistband of her shorts.

“I did notice, Cordy and I appreciate it a lot. I’m sure he did too. Can you tell me about this job we have?”

Angel shifted to the other foot, not sure quite how to handle this overheated-in-a-bad-way Cordelia.

“Mmmmmm, ah, yeah.. There is this old Volkswagen bus broken down over toward the pier in Santa Monica. Three guys and three gals in it and they’re in some kind of serious danger. Some guys in black suits are looking for them. I think they’re only after four of the six, but all of them will be hurt or killed if we don’t help them. Let’s go by my place on the way and pick up my bathing suit, okay?”

She closed the freezer door and walked back toward the main office to pick up her purse.

“We can even use the air conditioning in the car. I mean, it’s not like you can put the top down right now. C’mon. I’ll drive.”

Ice cubes melting rapidly even as they offered a modicum of relief from the heat, Cordelia grabbed the keys to Angel’s car from the rack and headed out the back door to the parking deck.

The brunette vampire had no choice but to follow and look perplexed.

****************************************

Turning down the winding side street off of Ocean, Cordelia saw the small battered Volkswagen bus sitting in the sparse shade of the trees just as her vision had shown her. The six people stood and sat around the bus or hovered over its engine tucked deep in the back of the vehicle.

Parking the black convertible in the same patchy shade, which was all that could be found, she left Angel behind his dark tinted window shade and strolled over to the group.

The heat hit her like a blast furnace the second she opened the door and in just a few feet she could already feel herself wilting.

The assorted group of people looked young, barely out of high school and as melted as she’d felt earlier. They all also seemed to share the same air of suspicion.

“Hi! I’m Cordelia and that is my partner, Angel over in the car. He’s uh, kinda allergic to the sun so he’ll just wait there. You seem to have a problem here. Can we offer you a hand?”

The older looking of the three men came to meet her. He was dark haired with a slim, serious, but very attractive face. He extended a nicely corded, muscular bare arm toward her to shake her hand. His voice was soft but one obviously used to command.

“Yes. Our bus seems to have finally given up on us for good and we need to find some shelter out of the heat. We’d be pleased if you could tell us where we might find an inexpensive motel in the neighborhood.”

“You do know you’re in Los Angeles now, right? And that you’re in Santa Monica and close to the ocean? Inexpensive motels are about 50 miles back east from here.” Cordelia paused for a moment, tapped out about motel advice and wondering how to tell these strangers that she knew they needed help. Finally she decided to just dive in. “We, ah.. sometimes get reports from unusual but very dependable sources and were alerted that you might need some help. We’re from Angel Investigations. This is what we do.. we help the helpless. So do you folks need some help or not?”

“Unusual sources?” The young man stepped back a space, looking warily at Cordelia as

a slender young woman, with what normally would be long dark hair had it not been bound up in a braid, approached.

“Hi. I’m Liz Parker-Evans and this is my husband Max. Yes, we do need some help. We’re being chased by some men that have been trying to kill us.”

“Okay then. I’m Cordelia, and the guy in the car is Angel of Angel Investigations. How about you guys grab your stuff and let's all head back to the hotel that is our office. We can talk there. It’s not cool right now..” The brunette shot a glance full of lightening back toward the barely visible shadow in the car. “Cause our air conditioner is broken, but it’s a cheap place for you guys to stay.” She looked directly at Max with her last comment because of his obvious money concerns about somewhere to stay.

Liz extended her hand to Cordy.

“Thanks. We appreciate that. The guy with the hair that kinda sticks up is Michael.. He’s my brother-in-law and is great with machines. Maybe he can get the a/c working for you as payment for helping us.”

“Well, if he can get that heap of junk running, you’ve got a deal! I’ll go open the trunk of our car for you while you grab your stuff.”

**************************************

Cordelia ferried the six new people back to the Hyperion in Angel’s car.

With a bit of creative packing in the trunk and Angel holding a few things as well, they managed to squeeze all of the newcomers’ belongings and eight people, in the car and get them to the hotel. Making more than one trip in the blazing heat outside was more than Cordy wanted to face. The hotel might be hot as the hinges of hell (and Angel, of all people, should know!), but at least the sun didn’t bite fiercely into one’s skin inside the confines of the building.

The visitors had been settled into four rooms upstairs, which actually surprised Cordelia. She’d thought the tall regal blonde, Isabel, and the medium brown haired man called Kyle, were also a couple but for some reason they had chosen two separate rooms.

After getting settled in their rooms, Angel had led Max, Kyle and Michael up stairs to the roof to look at the recalcitrant air conditioning unit while Cordelia chatted with Isabel who waited her turn in one of the two available bathrooms. Angel had made it clear that he wasn’t sharing his this time.

“So.. if you don’t mind me asking, I thought you and Kyle were a couple like Max and Liz or Michael and Maria?”

Isabel stopped her unpacking and turned to look at the brunette leaning against the doorframe.

“Actually.. I do mind, but since you’re helping us, I suppose it’s a reasonable question. I’m.. ah, married… but my husband couldn’t come with us. It wasn’t safe for him. I tried to release him from our vows, but he wouldn’t.. I don’t really expect to ever see him again, but it just didn’t seem fair to take advantage of Kyle simply because he’s there.”

“I don’t think you’d be taking advantage. It’s kinda obvious the guy is crazy about you.”

“Crazy… Yeah, that’s a good word for it. Seems like anyone who gets mixed up with us needs to be a bit crazy.” Isabel spoke softly, as if mostly for her own benefit as she gazed at the wall without seeing it. Catching herself, she looked back at Cordelia.

“Ah, yeah. But there are some really nasty people after us and I don’t want them to be able to use Kyle as a hostage against me. If they don’t know I care about him, they might not think about trying that tactic.

You said you had unusual sources and had gotten your information from them. What kind of unusual sources?”

“Probably a bit stranger than you’d expect, but they’re pretty dependable. Are you a witch or something by any chance? I mean, there was the impression of you using some kind of energy or power in my information.”

Isabel was caught off guard, backed up a step and raised her hand, palm toward the brunette in an unconscious gesture of defense.

Cordelia raised her own hand in a mirror image of Isabel, a faint glow appearing around her hand.

“I don’t think ‘throwing’ anything at me would be a good idea. I’m already too irritable from the heat and we are trying to help you, after all.”

“You.. You’re glowing! What..? How..? What.. are you?”

“All very good questions, but I think I asked you first.” Cordelia lowered her hand, the glow dissipated; yet she knew she could glow from her entire body if she needed. Raising her hand had simply been a friendly warning.

“It’s just that we.. We have to be careful. These people after us are pretty determined. They don’t seem to have any limits as to what they might do. But I’ll answer your question if you’ll answer mine.”

“Okay. It’s kinda a long story though. One of our partners that used to work with us was half demon and had these visions from the Powers That Be. Well, he was killed on a case, but kissed me before he died and gave those visions to me. I wasn’t part demon and the visions were killing me so I was given the option by the PTB’s to get rid of the visions but I saw what the results would be if I did so I chose to become part demon instead.

Ummm, Guess it wasn’t that long of a story after all. Your turn.”

Isabel moved another step back from the brunette.

“Demon? A demon? But.. demons aren’t real.”

“That doesn’t answer the question about what YOU are.”

“Okay, but we have to be careful. You can’t tell anyone. I’m… some of us…. Not all of us though! We’re.. I’m half alien and half human.”

“Half alien? I’m guessing here that you don’t mean like ‘I came from Canada without my passport or whatever’ kind of alien. You mean like ‘from outer space’ alien?”

Cordelia looked incredulous at the blonde in front of her, then slowly the irony of the situation dawned on her and she started to laugh. The more she though about the irony of a half demon and a vampire helping a bunch of half aliens the funnier the entire turn of events seemed. And the funnier the situation seemed, the more she laughed until finally her sides began to ache. Wrapping an arm around herself, Cordelia slid down the doorframe into a sitting, laughing heap on the floor.

The laughter and the irony of the situation was contagious and Isabel was very quickly laughing as hard as her brunette host as she retreated to the edge of the bed to sit, tears running down her cheeks from her mirth.

“Nice to see someone has found something funny about this whole situation. Wanna share with us?”

Maria and Liz had emerged from the bathrooms wrapped in huge towels, hair dripping as they stood in the hallway just behind Cordelia. Stepping carefully around the giggling brunette, the two women walked toward the giggling Isabel as they looked expectantly for an answer.

“She.. (giggle) said she’s a (giggle, giggle) demon and (giggle) finds it hard to believe (spate of giggling) some of us… (giggle) are half alien.”

“What?!” “You told her about us?”

Maria and Liz were both shocked at the comments and that Isabel had actually told this unknown woman their secret.

Cordelia wiped her face with both hands, struggling to her feet and then stepping toward the still weakly giggling Isabel, extending her hand to help the other woman up from the edge of the bed.

Isabel rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands then accepted the hand Cordelia offered, pulling herself upright to stand in front of the brunette.

“It’s really okay.” Cordelia tried to explain without bursting into laughter again.

“I’m a half demon, but I’m a good guy. Angel, my boss? He’s a vampire.”

The two women just looked at each other as they erupted into gales of laughter again, leaning into each other’s arms in attempt to remain standing as they hooted.

Liz and Maria looked at each other, sighed and sat on the edge of Isabel’s bed while they waited for some semblance of sanity to return to the two mad women.

***********************************

Angel stood just inside the doorway that led from the top of the stairs onto the roof of the hotel. Max, Kyle and Michael crowded around the obstinate air conditioning unit and occasionally poked at it, as they looked it over, discussing possibilities.

Angel had used Cordelia’s same excuse of sun allergies to remain inside and out of the fatal direct sunlight.

As the three men approached, the tall brunette stepped back down the stairs to allow the men access.

“So do you think you can do anything with it?”

The one with the somewhat spiked hair named Michael answered.

“I think I might be able to do something with it, but I’d rather try it a bit later if that’s okay with you. I’m pretty exhausted and would really like a bath, a bite to eat and a nap first. It might be a bit cooler up here then and I’ll feel a lot better and will be more than willing to try it then.”

“Sure. That’s fine. No problem. You guys just help yourself to the refrigerator, except I’m not really sure what’s in it…. Cordelia might have to make a shopping run after a bit, not that she minds spending my money.. ever! Then too, the grocery store will be air conditioned so she’ll like that. We hadn’t planned on this many people to feed… Not that it’s a problem! There might be some sandwich stuff in there now, though. It’s okay”

Angel tried to explain while he silently worried about how much blood he had in the refrigerator and if these people would find it.

“You don’t know what you have in your own refrigerator?”

Michael asked, puzzled at the whole ‘refrigerator’ speech.

“Well, I’m kinda on a special diet, so other than my stuff, Cordelia just keeps what she or some of our other vacationing partners might want in there.”

The four men headed down stairs from the roof, then the three newcomers turned toward the kitchen as Angel headed up the inside stairs to find Cordelia and have her ward off the ‘refrigerator contents’ problem. Instead, the brunette vampire heard hysterical laughter drifting down the hallway.

******************************

Max pulled the door of the ‘fridge open as Michael and Kyle peered cautiously inside.

Kyle reached for a round cardboard container that looked like it might have come from a deli and opened it.

“Aaaggghhh! Uh.. guys.. This is blood in here isn’t it? I mean.. Look at this. Isn’t this blood?”

Michael dipped his finger in the thick dark red liquid, watching it drip from his finger back into the container.

“Yeah, that’s blood. Why would this guy have blood in his refrigerator?”

“I have no idea, Michael, but I think we should go find out some answers before we do anything else.” Max turned and headed out of the kitchen as Kyle shoved the lid back on the container, putting it back on the shelf and closing the door before he also turned to follow Michael who was following Max toward the stairs.

******************************************

“Cordelia.. Are you okay?” Angel stood in the doorway of the blonde Isabel’s room.

His secretary was laughing and hugging the tall blonde woman as the other two female companions sat on the bed, wrapped in towels and watched the pair with a bemused expression on their face.

“Him? He’s the one that’s a vampire? But he’s up and walking around and its daylight?” Isabel managed to gasp out before giggling again.

“Cordelia! You told them?!”

The smaller brunette woman on the bed looked around the laughing pair at Angel standing in the doorway.

“That’s what WE said about what Isabel told HER!”

“You might as well come on in too. I’m sure the guys will be up shortly to see what’s going on and we can all tell every secret we have to each other, being the total strangers that we are, of course.”

Maria’s tone was exceptionally sardonic.

“Uh.. yeah. Okay.” Angel stepped inside the doorway and sat in the chair at the small desk.

His enhanced vampiric hearing heard the sound of multiple feet out in the hallway and he glanced at Maria.

“And here they come. I think they looked in the refrigerator.”

“And found… what? Your supply of blood?”

The blonde’s voice was still very skeptical.

“Something like that.. Yeah.”

Max, Michael and Kyle burst through the doorway only to stop short at the same sight that had perplexed Angel only minutes before.

“Izzy?”

Turning toward the door slightly as Cordy and Isabel still clung to each other, Isabel looked at the tall dark haired Max.

“Hey Max! Michael, Kyle! C’mon in guys.. You’ll never believe this!”

She pointed at the various men to indicate who was who.

“Cordy.. This is my brother Max, my other brother Michael and our friend Kyle.

Guys, this is my new friend Cordelia and she says she’s half demon and that her boss is a vampire but doesn’t believe we’re half alien.”

“You TOLD HER!?”

Three voices uttered the words at once, making it a bit more than just ‘stereo’.

**********************************

Cordelia and Isabel finally managed to calm down as six pairs of eyes watched them.

“Okay guys, yeah I told her. We were talking and she has visions and is half demon and her hand started glowing and she had seen my hand glowing in her vision and suddenly it just seemed the thing to do to explain. She did explain first, after all.”

Isabel hurriedly tried to tell her companions how the situation had happened.

“Cordelia?” Angel looked at the brunette and asked her just the one word.

“Yeah, like that, Angel. I saw her hand glow in the vision I had and asked if she was a witch and she got kinda weird on me and held up her hand, but it didn’t do anything then I held my hand up. It started glowing, so I told her. Besides, if they are gonna stay here while we help them, then they’re gonna find out about both of us. If they are what she says they are, then we need to know that to help them too.”

Angel glanced around the room, seeing the slight nodding of heads as the rest of the crowd tenitively agreed with Cordelia and Isabel

“Yeah. Sooner or later they’d find out about us, or at least me, and we’d have to know about them, so I guess it’s better we’ve gotten the first shock out of the way. We probably need to sit down and trade the whole story on both sides.”

“Fine, but first, did you guys decide anything about that damned air conditioner?”

Cordelia was feeling the heat now that she was no longer being side-tracked by the recent ‘giggle-fest’.

“Ah, I think I can do something with it but I wanted to catch a shower and if not a nap, at least a bite to eat first. We do have to keep our energy up to do this kinda thing.”, the man named Michael answered Cordelia for all of them.

“Fair enough. I’ll go make sandwiches while the rest of you take showers and give Liz and Maria time to dress.” Cordelia looked straight at Angel. “Like it or not, you have to share your shower right now so they can get finished faster. We can get down to business and then get that a/c fixed before I start killing somebody.”

Cordelia speared Angel with another look then gave directions for finding the vampire’s shower to the men before heading to the kitchen to slap a few sandwiches together to hold them over until the order she planned to place at the deli on Angel’s credit card arrived.

**********************************

“ ..So after my dad read my diary, he started investigating a few family rumors. The next time we managed to contact him, he told me that his dad had actually worked on the UFO site and said he cut his hand on a piece of metal that had alien blood on it. Max thinks it mixed with my grandfather’s DNA, got passed to my dad, then me and lay dormant until Max saved my life that day. So as far as we know, there is no reason to think that Kyle or his dad will ever develop any powers like I have.”

Liz had come to the end of the long tale of who the ‘Roswell gang’, as Cordelia was referring to them, actually were and why they were on the run.

“So you see now why we have to be so careful who knows about us. Not just for ourselves but for those who come into contact with us as well. But in this case, it sounds like you have very similar problems.” Max had been amazed to hear the earlier story of who and what Angel was and how he came to be running Angel Investigations in Los Angeles, not to mention the incredible events that had happened to Cordelia and the absent members of what the Roswell gang had termed the ‘LA crew’.

“Wow! It’s just all so.. so… wow!” Cordelia was amazed even after everything she’d seen and experienced here in L.A., not to mention years of living on the Hellmouth. Aliens in LA were very different than vampires or demons.

“Do you guys think that now that we’ve traded stories and had food, maybe you can fix that air conditioner so we can all get some decent sleep and start to work on your problem in the morning?”

Michael rose from his seat next to Maria. The couple had only had a few comments to interject in the entire conversation. They had spent most of the time simply enjoying being able to spend some quiet time with each other.

“Yeah, let’s go look at that bad boy and see what I can convince it to do for us.”

He headed up the same stairs Angel had used earlier to get to the roof, and directly toward the stubborn air conditioning unit, unaware he had an entourage following him to see this miracle.

The compactly built alien laid his hands on the unit, reaching deep inside of the mechanism with his mind, trying to determine the exact problem. Finding the broken linkage, he pulled his power forward, his hands suddenly surrounded by a faint green glow that he pushed into the machinery, repairing the broken metal part.

With a rattle, followed by a staccato cough, the ponderous unit wheezed back to life.

“YES!!!” Cordelia literally jumped into the air in what seemed to almost be a leftover cheerleading move, as she exclaimed to everyone her overwhelming joy for the now working air conditioner.

Seconds later, a whine zipped through the crowd on the roof, as something small and metallic slammed into the air conditioner, which promptly stopped working and simply hissed instead.

“NO!!!!” Cordelia cried out in anger and frustration.

Angel slammed her to the ‘ground’ of the roof, his hand behind her head to cushion its impact with the tar and cinder covered surface. All around her she saw or heard others hitting the deck as more of the whining objects struck around them.

“Snipers! Get inside!” Max yelled at all of them as he moved to a position in front of them all, raised his hand and suddenly there was a wavering wall of blue-green light/force between them and the bullets of the snipers on the opposite roof.

Within moments, Isabel, Michael and Liz stepped next to Max and added their unworldly energy to the force-field, expanding it to cover the entire roof.

Cordelia threw a quick glance at Angel before she stepped into the line of aliens and joined her demonic energy to the mix.

The force-field spread further and began to slide down the sides of the building, covering it like a glove from pavement to roof.

Knowing Isabel’s talent for reading minds now, Cordy grasped the tall blonde woman by the shoulder.

“ ‘Look’ at how I’m going to do this and see if you can help.”

The brunette felt the blonde ‘slide’ inside her mind as Cordelia twisted the energy slightly, leaving it in place, but turning down the glow of it.

Isabel ‘threw’ the image to the other warriors and in moments the shielding was intact around the building, but no longer visible to the eyes of anyone who looked at it.

“One more slight twist, we have to get in and out..”

Cordelia was almost panting from the strain as she altered the permeability of the field to allow any of them in or out. Now only those people who meant no harm to anyone of the two groups could enter the building.

At the limits of her strength, the brunette half-demon felt herself backed up by the odd alien power.

The shielding in place, Cordelia felt something akin to a soft ‘click’ in her mind, as the energy was ‘set’. That done, she slowly crumpled to the ground only to be caught by Angel before she hit.

**********************************

Cordelia slowly became aware of her surroundings, realizing that she was on the sofa in the hotel lobby. Angel knelt on the floor beside her, holding her hand and looking worried.

“Uhhhhh! Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah, everyone’s fine. They all went up to their rooms to rest finally, after all that. But we were getting worried about you. Are you okay, Cordy?”

The concerned vampire had refused to leave her side for even a moment.

“Yeah. A bit woozy and all… Between all that energy and this stupid heat…”

Memory returned as the brunette seer struggled to sit up, her rage rising rapidly as she remembered the air conditioner that had started working only to be ‘killed’ by sniper fire.

“They SHOT our air conditioner! Who the hell do they think they are? Just come around like that and killing our already dead a/c unit?!”

“Max and Michael think they can still fix it, but we want to wait until daylight for them to go back out there. We can’t protect them if we can’t see who’s shooting at them in the dark.”

Cordelia looked steadily at the still kneeling vampire.

“You mean… I have to swelter through another night in this stupid, stinking, frizz-my-hair, skin-ruining heat!?”

Without waiting for an answer, the brunette rose from the couch and stalked across the lobby and up the stairs to the room she was using, firmly and resoundingly slamming the door behind her.

Angel just knelt on the floor holding his head in his hands.

******************************

After a half-hearted breakfast the next morning, Angel led Max, Michael and Kyle through the underground tunnels to a local hardware store for supplies.

While the women had attempted to make breakfast with warm, limp melons, toast soggy from the humidity, and lack-luster eggs; the Roswell trio had gone back to the roof to check the new damage to the air conditioner while Angel kept watch from the shelter of the stairwell.

List in hand, Max, Michael and Kyle climbed the indicated ladder into the basement of the store.

Two hours later, the men re-entered the basement of the Hyperion. The three from Roswell told Angel they would sort out the supplies and grab tools before heading to the roof again.

Angel went ahead to let the women know they were back, however he was not prepared for the scene that greeted him in the lobby.

There, in the center of the floor, was a child’s bright green, large, inflated wading pool.

It was filled with water and the four women, clad in either bathing suits or tee-shirts and shorts, sat talking, splashing water and flipping the occasional ice cube at each other.

That they were sitting in a water-filled container in the hotel lobby was bad enough, but the fact that they’d had to leave the hotel to get the container, knowing there were people trying to kill at least part of them if not all of them, had the vampire more than a little angry.

His anger had to be the reason he never noticed the water trickling slowly from the pool because of condensation and splashing, or the sliver of ice cube sitting hidden in that water.

Unfortunately, his shoe found the ice cube and then tried to tread the air in front of him instead of the floor.

Angel wind-milled his arms trying desperately to regain his balance, to no avail. He rapidly slipped and slid first one direction then the other, in an attempt to not fall flat on his face on the floor.

He managed to miss the floor completely, falling face first between Isabel and Liz, to land face down in the pool of very cool water.

Angel tried to lever himself out of the water with his arms, only to realize he couldn’t position them correctly. There seemed to be something firm, yet soft in his way.

Raising his head slightly out of the water, he noticed an expanse of tanned skin on either side of his head. His eyes looked a bit more northerly and encountered stretched fabric, dappled in black and gold like a faux leopard.

The normally dark-visaged vampire knew that fabric, but his eyes insisted on gazing upward, knowing what he’d find and hoping he was wrong.

Nope, he was right.

Cordelia looked down at him, arms akimbo, hands braced on her hips as she sat in the cool water, Angel looking up at her from between her thighs.

“Are you comfy there, Angel? You don’t need anything do you? Like a pillow, or a blanket? Night-cap? Or would that be day-cap for you?”

Once the initial shock of the vampire’s fall into the pool passed, Isabel, Liz and Maria broke into laughter that grew with every passing second. The chagrin on the vampire’s face and the scathing sarcasm in Cordelia’s voice was the final straw as the three women wrapped their arms around their sides, leaning over laughing. The movement was more than the inflated edges of the pool could handle and they each slid right over the edge, water spilling with them as they then lay on the soaked floor of the lobby laughing so hard they had trouble breathing.

Max, Michael and Kyle peered around the basement doorway and saw the absurd spectacle causing the laughter that had attracted their attention.

The three men walked over to the scene of the problem, perfectly straight-faced.

Michael shook his head slightly before commenting to the drenched vampire.

“Angel…. You think you might come up and help us once you finish whatever it is you’re not doing down there? Good, I thought you might.”

Without waiting for a reply, the men walked away, heading up the stairs.

Cordelia reached down into the water and grasped Angel by the shoulders of his shirt, hauling him upward slightly and shoving him over the edge of the pool to the floor and out from between her legs.

“Go! Go right now, Angel!”

The tall brunette stood up, water sheeting down her body, as she once more stalked away from her boss, who was once again.. on the floor.

************************************

Several hours later the sun had finally set and Angel could finally do more than toss tools or suggestions to the three men working diligently on the stubborn air conditioner.

While not really mechanically inclined, Angel was quite good at doing whatever Kyle and Michael asked.

Max seemed to be in the same boat with Angel on the mechanics.

As the men worked up on the roof, Cordelia and the three women had dried off in their respective rooms, then headed back to the office and the elusive comfort promised by the presence of the two fans there. Each woman told Cordelia everything they knew about the Roswellians’s situation and the people who were chasing them.

They had been surprised at the perceptive questions the tall leggy brunette asked, questions that often cut right to the heart of individual events that had occurred.

“So you think that if this Tess had been more through, or had simply not caused the explosion at the base, they’d not have been trying so hard to kill you right now?”

“Yeah. I think that the explosion on top of killing all the scientists pretty much convinced them that we were all dangerous.”

Liz had explained the night she’d taken the fourth alien back to the military base, which moments later burst into flames killing everyone, yet had not destroyed the damning ‘evidence’ on the video tape made by Isabel’s mother. The tape that showed a room full of swirling, flying items as Isabel sat on her bed in frustration months earlier.

“Do you think the men are F.B.I. or military?”

“We’re not really sure about that. They seem to be both.. or neither. Mostly they’re just ‘men in black suits’.”

“Have you managed to lose them for any length of time at all since you left Roswell?”

“Not really. A week or two here, a few days there.”

Cordelia leaned her chin further into her hand, that elbow propped on the desk.

“Hmmmm. Sounds like what you really need to do is figure out some way to make them stop chasing you. Let me think about this for a bit and maybe I can come up with something, or maybe Angel can.. He’s had to ‘disappear’ more than once in the last couple of hundred years or so.

I’ll ask him and see what we can come up with, but right now, let’s go check on that damned air conditioner. They’ve been up there for hours!”

The four women nodded in agreement as they detached themselves from the clinging material of the chairs and headed up the stairs to the roof.

******************************

“OWW! Dammit!”

Angel stuck the knuckle he’d just scraped the skin from into his mouth to stop the bleeding.

The other three men just looked at him, not saying a word.

The vampire looked around at their faces and the blank expressions on their faces, even as their eyes focused intently on the bleeding finger in his mouth.

Removing the finger, Angel met each stare before he started his mini-tirade.

“What!? None of you have ever barked a knuckle and stuck it in your mouth?! You think just cause I’m a vampire that I’m also not a normal human!?”

Kyle shuffled his feet slightly then met Angel’s glare without a flinch.

“Yeah. We have done the same thing and yeah, we think you’re not a normal human. You’re a vampire! That not a normal human!”

“Well.. Yeah, okay.. So I’m not exactly normal.. But I do have normal reactions! This isn’t just some blood suck-fest! That hurt!”

Angel grimaced as he gingerly touched the offending digit again.

“Guys.. This isn’t getting this thing fixed or solving any other problems. I don’t think Angel’s going to bite any of us. With the exception of Kyle or Maria, we’d probably leave a bad taste in his mouth anyway.”

Max tried to be the usual voice of reason.

“Hey!” “Wait a minute!”

Michael protested for Maria while Kyle objected to the comment himself.

“Max… How about not offering any of us for an appetizer. We’ve got enough problems without adding that,” Maria threw in her opinion; the women having reached the roof behind the clustered men without being heard.

All four of the men jumped from the unexpected sound of the short blonde’s voice.

“Hey! Don’t sneak up on us like that!”

Michael fell back instantly on the irritability he used so often to mask his moments of fright or insecurity.

Cordelia leaned against one side of the doorframe as she surveyed the double scene before her.

“I really hate to interrupt the fun you are all having snarling at each other, but if we don’t all go back inside in about 30 seconds, the nice little men-in-black are about to drop an exploding present from that helicopter heading this way. I don’t think we took that into account when we made our force-field.”

Having made her announcement, she casually turned back inside the doorway and headed down the stairs.

There was a quick glance from one person to the next before they all sprang for the same doorway. Michael glanced over his shoulder as he reached the door and saw the small dark object hit the roof from the ‘copter that was now directly overhead.

The well-muscled alien rolled into a dive down the stairs with a warning shout.

“INCOMING!”

The explosion of the grenade, just inches above the rooftop, sprayed shrapnel into the wood of the door, its frame, the roof and of course, the almost restored air conditioner.

************************************

Smoke drifted down the stairs in small tendrils, stinking of cordite, burned metal and more heat.

Cordelia shoved at the pile of bodies pinning her legs. They loudly protested and yelped as she pushed indiscriminately at bruises or slight cuts from the tumble they had taken as Michael’s dive knocked them down the stairs like so many bowling pins.

“Get OFF of me! It’s too damned hot! Can’t any of you manage to not fall on me? Is there something wrong with the floor that you can’t just fall on it?”

Cordy struggled to her feet as several of the others managed to find more upright positions as well. Sudden realization hit the brunette as she looked back up the stairs to the roof. She saw the shrapnel damage to the door, the frame and made an appalling connection.

“And those idiots and their explosions, probably just tore up our air conditioner AGAIN!”

****************************

Cordelia started down the remainder of the stairs, intent on the front door of the hotel.

She was betting there were some of the unknown men waiting somewhere out in the dark street and she intended to find them to tell them exactly what she thought about the recent ‘death-toll’ they had inflicted on the air conditioning unit.

Angel suddenly realized where his secretary was heading and grabbed the stair railing, pulling himself quickly to his feet from the sitting position he’d just begun to enjoy, as he headed after her.

“Cordelia! Cordy, stop! You can’t go out there!”

The brunette never turned or slowed her pace, intent as she was on her ‘prey’.

“Oh, you just watch me! As soon as I find those stupid imbecilic excuses for government personnel, I’ve got more than a few things to tell them!”

The door swung closed, biting off her last words.

Angel hit the doors, following the steaming Cordelia across the street toward the ominous looking black car.

He wasn’t in time.

Demon powers coming to the surface, Cordelia wrenched the door handle of the car, neatly removing the entire door to expose the two men inside. Both wore identical off-the-rack black suits and sunglasses even though it was full dark outside. Or at least as dark as it ever really got on any of the downtown streets of Los Angeles.

Next she reached inside the car and hauled the nearest man forcibly out by the lapels of that same black suit, slamming him against the side of the car.

“What do you think you’re doing? Do you have any idea how much trouble we’ve gone through trying to fix that stupid air conditioner only to have you idiots shoot it or blow it up?” The man opened his mouth in an attempt to answer the raging woman that held him pinned to the side of the car.

“Shut up! Don’t you dare interrupt me! If I have to spend another 24 hours sweltering in this heat because of you people, I’ll personally find some nasty demon in the sewers around here and serve you up to them. Do you understand me?”

The man hung mutely in her grasp, unsure if he should try to say anything or not.

“Answer me!”

The cowed government agent managed a slight nod before he passed out.

********

Angel made his way to the other side of the car just as Cordelia slammed the driver into the side of that car. The man’s partner had eased out the door on the passenger side and was reaching into his jacket, probably for a gun, when Angel wrapped his arm around the agent’s neck.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Right now you can take the easy way out or you can keep reaching for that weapon and take the hard way out.”

The government agent turned as much as possible to see the face of the man that had surprised him, then wished he hadn’t. The face of his captor was deformed, distorted. The mouth grinned around jaggedly sharp teeth as the agate-hard yellow eyes seemed to burn down at him.

“W-what are you… what are you going to.. to do to us?”

“Let’s see.. was that one question or two?” Angel grinned a bit more, thoroughly enjoying himself for the first time in days. He’d caught the brunt of Cordelia’s temper and now it was time to work a bit of his own irritation out. This guy seemed to fit the bill to do just that.

“In case it was two questions… What am I? A vampire, of course. What are we going to do to you? Kill you. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to do to us ever since we went to help those kids you’re chasing?”

“You don’t… understand. They.. they’re not human!”

The man gasped, struggling against the arm across his throat in an effort to draw a deep breath.

“And I am? Or you think you are for trying to kill them? Seems to me that the real monsters here would be you two.. Well, myself too, but we’re just talking about the ones that need killin’. That would be just you and your friends.”

With a sudden jerk of his arm, Angel snapped the man’s neck, dropping him to the ground before sliding around the car to do the same with the man Cordelia was continuing to berate.

He caught her by the arm, turning her toward him.

“I’ll take care of them. Get back inside before more of them show up!”

Angel pushed Cordelia toward the hotel as he caught the now dead man under one arm, going back around the car to pick up the second one the same way before ducking into the darkened alley way behind him.

The grim vampire knew that if the men had returned to their superiors and informed them about Cordelia or himself, the bombardment and harassment would never stop until the government men saw them all dead. While somewhat extreme, Angel knew eliminating these two might just stop that scenario before it happened.

************************************

Back in the hotel, Cordelia explained what had happened across the street, then abruptly sat down on the sofa as reaction caught up to her.

Isabel sat next to her, taking her hand.

“Back in Roswell… There was someone trying to kill us. She was an evil alien in a human body she’d stolen. I – I had to kill her to save Tess. We didn’t know how bad Tess was then, but I think… I think I’d have saved her even if I had known. But after I killed that woman.. even knowing what she was.. I felt really bad, you know? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, but it’s always hard to kill any of them.”

Cordelia looked at the statuesque blonde with a bit more understanding of what these people, barely out of their teens, had been through.

“I’ve had to kill things.. demons, vampires, and even humans, but it’s always hard. I do understand that. But I let my temper get the better of me and I could have gotten all of us hurt, not just me. Now Angel has to clean up for me. We’ve got to find a way to get you all free of these slugs.”

As the words left her mouth, an idea started to take shape in the brunette’s mind. She decided she’d talk to Angel about it privately, once he returned, as she apologized for what she’d put him in the position to have to do.

“We’ll figure out something, Cordy. I think I need to go take care of a problem all my own right now.”

Isabel looked past her friend to the knot of her companions across the room.

“Finally gonna tell that man how you feel about him? I think it’s a good idea. We’ll do everything we can to solve this and keep all of you safe, but just in case… You know?”

Isabel glanced back at Cordelia, then gave her hand a pat before she turned it loose to stand up. The blonde looked down at Cordelia for a moment before she grinned.

“Yeah, I know. I think it’s also time to be truthful with yourself and that vampire of yours. I can read dreams, remember?”

With that parting quip, Isabel walked across the lobby to talk to Kyle.

********************************************

Isabel edged toward Kyle slightly so she could talk to him without being overheard.

“I need to talk to you. Give me a few minutes and then come up, please?”

Without waiting for a reply from the brown haired man, she moved back a step.

“I’m gonna go upstairs. I’m kinda tired and this heat has made it worse. ‘Night.”

Isabel turned and headed up the stairs, unaware that all eyes followed her then looked at Kyle.

“What? I haven’t done anything!”

“Yeah, I know, Kyle. Maybe that’s the problem.” Max glanced back at the stairs his sister had climbed.

“Maybe you should. You know it’s hard to hide the way you feel about her.. It’s not like we’ve had a lot of privacy over the last few months. I’m pretty sure she cares about you and I know she’s been really lonely. It’s hard on both of you to be alone when the rest us are paired off.”

“Yeah, it is and you’re right about how I feel about her, Max. But she’s not given me any indication that she really wants me to ‘do anything’ as you put it.”

Liz laid her hand on her friend’s shoulder.

“I think that asking you to come talk to her was a hint, Kyle. Go on.”

Kyle Valenti simply nodded in agreement then headed for the stairs.

He was nervous when he reached Isabel’s door, standing there clenching and unclenching his hands as he swallowed, trying to at least appear calm. Finally he knocked tentatively on the door, only to have it abruptly opened, his arm grabbed and he was pulled quickly inside.

“Kyle! Someone might have seen you!” Isabel whispered harshly.

“Izzy.. you either want to talk to me or you don’t. Besides.. they all know I’m here anyway.”

“They.. they know?” Her voice broke slightly on the last word.

“Yeah. So what exactly did you want to talk to me about?”

The tall blonde turned and moved away, pacing two steps left, three right, then three left and two right before she quickly stopped and faced the puzzled man.

“Kyle.. I.. I mean, we…. Do you…. Oh, how do I get myself into these things?”

Kyle made a decision, Max’s previous comments echoing in his head.

He took a couple of steps toward Isabel, pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly.

When he finally released her so they could both breath he asked, “Is that sort of what you had in mind?”

“Ah.. uh-huh. I know you care and I know that I’m.. but I care about you too. I didn’t want to start something between us and have you to think I was just using you because I was alone, you know.”

“Izzy, I’ll take you on any terms. I was surprised when I realized how I really felt about you. I mean, there you were already married.. But then this all happened and you tried to break things off with him. He couldn’t come with us and here you were. I didn’t want to take advantage of you but I couldn’t help how I feel, Isabel. I’m surprised you haven’t strayed through one of my dreams and found out already.”

He saw a sheepish expression cross her face and quickly disappear.

“Isabel! That’s cheating!”

“I didn’t mean to! It just kinda happened.”

“Then I’m sure you know what it was about. What we did. What I wanted. How I felt. They usually are like that when you’re involved and it seems all I ever dream about is you.”

Kyle left the unspoken question hanging in the air.

“I know. I – I liked the way you did… that… in your dreams and all.”

Isabel felt shy, unsure how to move the conversation to where she actually wanted it to go, knowing what she did.

Kyle had no more reservations about the matter and pulled the blonde alien back into his arms, capturing her lips with his once more as he carefully backed her toward the bed.

*****************************************

Cordelia waited for Angel to come back to the hotel after disposing of the two bodies.

The Roswell gang had all gone upstairs almost half an hour earlier and the brunette was beginning to worry about the dark haired, brooding vampire when he came through the front door. Cordelia stood up and took a few steps toward the vampire.

“Angel, I wanted to apo….”

“Cordelia, you could have gotten everybody hurt by going out there after those men like that. YOU could have been hurt. What would I do then?”

“Well, I guess the PTB’s would find someone…”

Angel grabbed the brunette by both arms, pulling her toward him as he growled down into her face. “I don’t mean the visions! I meant you! What happens to you matters to me, Cordelia.”

Angel abruptly pulled her closer, savagely covering her lips with his own, kissing her until Cordelia struggled to pull away to catch her breath.

“That’s what I mean, Cordy!”

The slender brunette jerked away from him, chest heaving from the excitement of the kiss, her tumultuous emotions and a healthy or unhealthy dose, as the case may be, of anger.

“How dare you, Angel! You don’t get to be the only person around here allowed to lose your temper! I know I could have gotten hurt and I know everyone here could have been hurt! I wanted to apologize to you before you got so damned cave-man on me like that!”

Cordelia suddenly reached up to grab Angel, one hand behind his neck and she snatched his face down to kiss him just as fiercely had he had kissed her moments before.

Angel responded to the assault on his lips by gathering her into his arms and pulling her tight against his body. He knew she had to be aware of the firm length of him pressing hard against her thigh.

Cordelia pulled away from Angel’s embrace, flushed, lips kiss-swollen, her breath coming in panting gasps.

“No. We can’t do this.”

Angel reached out for her again, frustration rising.

“Cordelia.. You know it’s not.. well, it’s not that that can make me lose my soul. I can handle it now. I want you, Cordy. I have for a while now, it was just hard to tell you how I felt.”

“Angel.. I want you too. I do. I feel the same way, I just didn’t want to face it. But it’s too damned HOT! I need to go take a shower.”

She turned quickly and headed up the stairs at a run.

Angel gazed forlornly after her as he muttered to himself.

“Yeah, me too. But it’s gonna be a cold shower!”

**************************************

Kyle eased Isabel down on the bed beneath him as he kissed her. He held his weight off of her with his muscled forearms braced against the bed. Breaking the kiss to catch their breath, he nuzzled the length of her slender neck, breathing in the scent of her.

“Izzy, I’ve wanted this for so long…. Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“Kyle, I’ve wanted you too, but I had to be sure it wasn’t just loneliness and what are you doing? You haven’t picked up any bad habits from our host have you?”

Isabel shifted slightly, moving her neck away from Kyle’s gently nibbling teeth as the fact that their host was a vampire reared inside of her head.

The brown haired man rolled to one side, still holding Isabel with an arm around her waist.

“Iz, I’m not a vampire. I haven’t picked up any bad habits, or at least not from him. I really care about you and really want to be with you, but not if you’re unsure.”

Isabel shifted to her side, raising up slightly to prop herself on one elbow so she could look at Kyle’s face. She lifted her other hand to trace the curve of his lips with a gentle fingertip.

“No.. I’m sure. I want to be with you, it’s just that….”

“What? Just that’s it’s what, Isabel?”

“Don’t laugh at me, Kyle. It’s just that it’s so hot!”

The female alien sounded almost embarrassed at her confession of what was actually holding her back from the ardent lovemaking she wanted to indulge in with this man.

Kyle did chuckle as he sat up on the bed, catching her hand and kissing the fingertip, drawing it between his lips to swirl his tongue around it before releasing it again.

“If that’s the only problem, Isabel, I have a cure for that.”

He stood, pulling her to her feet, a puzzled expression on her face until he started leading her to the door of the bathroom.

Once inside, he turned the lock on the second door that connected to the room used by Michael and Maria, then locked the door from Isabel’s room before turning on the water in the shower.

Satisfied with the temperature, Kyle turned to see Isabel sitting on the edge of the sink counter watching him with an expression of wonder on her face.

He moved to stand against her knees until she opened them to let him stand between them as he cupped her face with both hands, kissing her again before he dropped his hands to the buttons of her thin sleeveless blouse, unfastening them.

**************

They had taken their time undressing each other, exploring the newly exposed expanses of skin, kissing and nibbling each new area until both were completely nude.

Kyle pulled her to him, feeling her smooth skin against him. He’d been hard since the first kiss and now wondered if he’d manage to even last long enough to please this beautiful woman he’d fallen in love with months ago.

Isabel pulled back from the embrace to catch Kyle’s hand, pulling him into the shower and under the cool streams of water cascading over both of them, washing away the heat in the air, but not the heat that rose between them.

Kyle caught up the bar of soap and enjoyed every second of rubbing its smooth slipperiness over Isabel’s pale, wet skin.

She caught his hand, taking the soap from him to do the same to the hard masculine planes of his body as she shivered from his fingers dancing across her well-soaped body creating suds, goose-bumps and tingles up and down her spine.

There was much gentle horse-play while washing the soap from their bodies until Isabel pulled Kyle into a steaming kiss, her alien energy spiraling across his skin, tightening the loose dangling portion of skin so recently washed clear of soap.

It was his turn to break away from the kiss.

“Izzy, what was that? And if you do that again, I may not last long, honey.”

“Kyle… It’s part of who and what I am. You’ve heard Liz talk about the visions she’s had when she and Max kiss.. Well, this is the other part. The part that happens with us during sex. If you don’t last very long… It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere and we’ve got all night…. Or as long as the water holds out.”

She grinned at him as she slid her wet hand across his wet chest to find a flat masculine nipple with her fingers.

Kyle had told her the truth and moments later under the renewed assault of that skin-prickling energy had found his long denied release. Isabel held him, caressed him, kissed and reassured him as wave after wave of pleasure swept through him.

Once past, she set about encouraging his renewed ‘attention’ in very pleasing ways.

*******

The water had long since lost all traces of heat as it fell on the pair in the shower.

Kyle was sitting on the floor of the shower with Isabel sitting astride him, rocking back and forth as they gasped and strained against each other. Their hands clutched and caressed each other and the otherworldly energy held them in its grip. With a final small mewling sound, Isabel scored Kyle’s chest with her nails as her inner muscles fluttered once, then tightened around him spasmodically.

He never felt the scratches on his skin as he followed her into the abyss for the third time that evening.

Isabel collapsed against his chest and shoulder, panting, sated and more relaxed than she’d been in longer than she could remember.

Kyle nibbled her earlobe as he murmured into her ear. “Izzy, honey. As much as I’m enjoying this and as much as I’ve dreamed of it, which I’m sure you know…. We need to move and turn off the water. I’m getting dish-pan body, honey.”

Isabel chuckled as she maneuvered herself off his body to stand under the cold water and rinse away the remnants of their lovemaking. Kyle finally managed to stand and did the same, then reached to turn the water off.

Before he could step from the shower, Isabel handed him a thick, soft towel.

“Let’s dry off before we go slide in between those nice cotton sheets. They’re so soft I think they must be really high thread count Egyptian cotton.”

“Honey, I don’t care if they’re burlap right now, as long as I’m with you and can hold you in my arms while we sleep.”

“Hmmmm. Why did I never notice what sweet things you can say to a girl before now?”

Kyle grinned at her, mischief twinkling in his eyes. “Probably cause you just didn’t pay attention to me.”

He ducked her swipe with the towel as he did a hop-step toward her bed to dive under the covers ahead of her.

Isabel tossed the towels over the top of the shower then slipped under the softness of the sheets to feel Kyle’s very masculine body curl against her back as he wrapped his arms around her and snuggled his chin into her shoulder.

“Izzy?”

“Yes, Kyle?”

“Izzy, I….”

Whatever he’d planned to say was interrupted abruptly by pounding on the door to the room.

Isabel looked over her shoulder for a moment at the man behind her before she slid out of bed, catching up a robe from the foot of the bed and pulling it on.

She stepped to the door and leaned slightly toward it. “Yes?”

“Isabel, it’s me!”

Isabel opened the door to find Michael standing there in tee shirt and boxers, propped against the doorframe.

“Michael! What on earth do you want? Do you know what time it is?”

“Actually, I do, thanks.” The compactly built man leaned his head inside the door looking past Isabel to speak to Kyle where he lay under the covers of Isabel’s bed.

“Hi, Kyle.

Isabel, do you think you can unlock the other door to the bathroom now that you two are through in the shower? I kinda wanted to get to the toilet, if you guys don’t have plans for that tonight as well?”

The blonde blushed from below the neck of her robe all the way to the roots of her hair.

“Oh! I’m.. ah, sorry, Michael. I’ll go unlock the door.”

She tried to push the door shut, but Michael held it open a moment longer as he leaned back in and spoke to Kyle again.

“Good going there, Kyle. I’ll give you some tips tomorrow on how to handle our energy. ‘Night.”

Michael pulled the door shut before the look on his sister’s face could translate into the slap he knew he deserved right about now. But it had been such fun!

***********************************

The next morning, Cordelia was awake before anyone.. and even more grumpy than usual. She kept telling herself it was just the heat, hoping she’d convince herself it was true sooner or later.

She quietly slammed pots and dishes around in the kitchen as she made what she hoped would be a cool breakfast for everyone.

“Would you like a bit of help? We can make more noise if that would help you?”

Cordy turned around to face Max, who watched her with a slightly amused expression.

“Thanks. Help would be nice, but I think I can manage the noise all on my own.”

“Is there anything I can do to help the other problem?”

“What? Don’t any of you guys know how to stay out of someone’s head?”

Cordelia snarled, knowing exactly what problem he meant.

“That’s Isabel’s power, not mine. I know because I’d started to come back downstairs to get Liz a glass of juice. You and Angel were, ah, kinda busy, so I went back upstairs. I heard both of you come up shortly afterwards and go to separate rooms, so I figured all hadn’t gone well. You two are trying to help us and you did help Izzy and Kyle.. Can I do anything to help you?”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Max. I’m just… I wanted to.. I really did but I’ve been so hot and completely miserable. I just didn’t want the very first.. well, it should be better than being so miserable from the heat.”

Cordelia knew if she talked about this much longer, she might actually start to cry. Between the heat and now the added frustration, she was finding whole new realms of misery.

“We’ll try to get the air conditioner fixed today if we can. I’m not sure how much damage that grenade did last night though.”

“That’d be great, Max. And I think I have an idea that will help your problem too.

First, I want to go see a friend of ours after breakfast. I think maybe one of you has a homing device of some kind that no one knows about, unless it was on your van. But if it was the van, how would they have followed you to the hotel?

So I want our friend to check all of you to be on the safe side. Then we can get all your ‘buddies’ to come over, see a big fight with us on the roof and we’ll……”

Cordelia explained in detail what she’d thought of last night while she had been waiting for Angel to come back.

Max looked at the tall slender brunette, amazement across every inch of his face.

“That’s a great idea! I think it might actually work too. Let’s make sure there are no tracking devices first, then I’ll tell the others.”

“Tell us what, Max?”

Michael had walked in on the end of the conversation between his brother and the pretty seer that had alternately been trying to help them and snarling at them, when she wasn’t in a laughing heap with Isabel, the alien reflected.

“Cordelia has an idea that might get rid of our pursuers. But we need to be checked for some kind of tracking device first. I should have thought of that myself as the reason why they keep finding us. I also promised we’d check out that a/c again and see what damage was done last night. If we can, we need to try and fix it for them today.”

“Maybe she and Angel should have just hogged his shower last night like Isabel and Kyle did to the one we were trying to share.”

Michael delivered his sardonic comment as he walked past Cordelia toward the coffee pot.

“I’d watch those comments if I were you, space-boy! I can glow and I know how to use it!”

Cordelia turned away to stir the waiting pot once more before removing it from the burner. She kept the smile to herself, but knew Michael was staring at her as she’d used the teasing name she’d heard Maria call him when irritated.

Max walked past Michael to help himself to a cup of coffee as well, murmuring under his breath to his brother. “She got your number, didn’t she?”

************************************

During breakfast, Cordelia explained her plan to everyone. There was a great deal of discussion and fine-tuning, but finally they thought they had the idea worked out as well as possible.

Angel wasn’t happy about Cordy leaving the hotel, what with the elusive but determined men pursuing the Roswell gang, but after she’d verbally chewed on him for a few minutes, he decided it might be better to save his concern for the men-in-black, if Cordelia found any of them.

His secretary was being extremely stubborn and very unforgiving about the whole situation with the air conditioner and the men’s repeated destruction of it just as Cordelia anticipated cool air once more.

So after the remnants of the meal were cleaned up, Cordelia left to bring back minor reinforcements to check for any type of tracking device.

In the meanwhile, the guys all trooped back up the stairs once more to assess the new damage to the a/c unit.

From where Angel stood in the shelter of the stairwell, what he could see didn’t look promising at all for the air conditioner’s well being, nor his for that matter, if he couldn’t figure out a way get it repaired.

“Ah.. so what do you think guys? It looks kinda bad from here.”

“That’s only because you can’t see this side. From here, your side looks good!”

Michael was dryly sardonic although his face gave nothing away.

“It’s pretty much a mess.” Kyle just shook his head slightly at the gaping hole the grenade had torn in the far side of the unit. The side they were looking at that Angel couldn’t see.

“So what do we do? Can it be fixed?”

Max heard the near anxiety under the words as the vampire asked the question. Knowing the events of last night, the dark haired alien was reasonably sure of at least two reasons causing the stress.

“Angel, I think that if all of us work together on it, we can get it repaired and working again. It’s going to take probably most of the day and into the evening because we’ll have to do a bit then take a break before we do a bit more. None of us can keep up the energy for as long that it will take to repair this. We’ll have to rest in between attempts.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s fine. I really appreciate the effort you’re putting into this, so anything you can do is great.”

Angel looked back down the stairs for a long moment before turning to look at Max again.

“You can fix it, right?”

Michael had no idea what had happened between Cordelia and Angel the previous evening, so he was perplexed and a bit irritated that the vampire kept asking the same question.

“What? You don’t even feel the heat, or so you told us. You got a hot date or something, Angel?”

The dark haired brooding vampire honed his brooding skills a bit more, looking incredibly forlorn.

“I sure would like to have one….”

*********************************

Cordelia pulled the car into a space just off of La Brea and parked Angel’s car. As she got out of the car, she glanced up at the building that was her objective just in time to see the curtains twitch over an upper window as someone closed them after obviously looking outside.

She sighed to herself, knowing that advance warning meant she would have to work that much harder.

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, the brunette headed toward the door.

The building fortunately had an elevator, so Cordy didn’t have to climb stairs in the heat.

As she exited the lift, she turned left and walked to the doorway at the end of the hall and knocked.

There was no reply, but she’d not expected one.

She knocked again and still there was no answer.

Cordelia thought for only a second then banged at the door with the side of her closed fist.

“Harry, open this door! I know you’re in there! I saw you at the window and besides… I can hear your knees knocking!”

Harry did NOT open the door.

“Harry! Open this door before I glow it down!”

That got the desired response and with much rattling of chains and turning of locks, the door finally creaked open slightly.

Cordelia shoved it open with a straight arm and barged inside, slamming the door behind her.

Harry was a Dovan demon, which was to say that he was not quite four feet tall and looked like someone had wrapped a bit of stuffing over the main joints of a skeleton then covered the whole thing with a pale blue skin. Dovan demons had slanted, almost oriental eyes, except they were usually bright pink.

Harry was nervous about Cordelia being there and so right then, his eyes were glowing neon pink. The more nervous a Dovan demon got, the brighter their eyes glowed.

Harry could have lit up a disco right now.

“Harry, I’m not going to hurt you. I need to ask a favor.”

“You hurt Harry if not need favor?”

The demon had a soft raspy voice that made Cordy think of the way a cat’s tongue felt on skin.

“No Harry, I’m not going to hurt you at all. You know I wouldn’t. Why did we save you from the X’ool demon several months back if we were going to hurt you?”

“Harry not know. Humans hard to understand. What favor you need from Harry?”

“We have a job we’re working on right now. It’s several people that some really bad men are trying to hurt. They can’t stop the men from following them and I need you to check them for some kind of tracking device.”

“You want Harry to find ‘bug’?”

The demon definitely perked up, knowing what the favor was now.

“Yes, Harry. I need you to find a ‘bug’. If there is one there, it’s all yours, I promise.”

“Harry come. Harry help. Let Harry get jacket.”

The small, blue, emaciated looking demon disappeared through a door only to return moments later with a furry pink jacket.

Cordelia sighed again. The Dovan dimension was about 50 degrees warmer than it was currently in L.A. So while she felt like roast beef, sweltering in her own juices, Harry.. was cold.

**********************************

Cordelia headed for the parking deck behind the hotel and stashed Angel’s car in its usual space. Then she had to convince Harry to get out of the car, and of course there was more convincing to get him into the hotel.

Once they achieved the lobby, Cordelia kept a firm grip on Harry’s arm as she called for her boss.

“Angel! We’re here. Bring them in here before Harry runs!”

Within moments, Angel clattered down the stairs followed by an entire entourage. He walked over to the small demon and greeted him, unaware that everyone else had stopped and were simply staring at the short blue demon.

Cordelia caught the looks and turned to introduce Harry.

“Guys, this is Harry. He’s a Dovan demon and if anyone can find a tracking device or ‘bug’ as he likes to call them, Harry can do it. He wouldn’t hurt anyone, so you don’t need to be afraid of him. He does kinda have to ‘sniff’ to find the device though, so don’t let it get you all weirded out.

There was a bit more discussion and introduction, then each one of the Roswell gang stood still in front of the little blue man as Harry ‘sniffed’ them over like a dog looking for treats.

That’s exactly what he was doing.

Some time later, when no homing device had been found, everyone was starting to feel almost disappointed. They had actually hoped something would show up to explain the puzzling way the pursuers kept finding them no matter where they went.

Just as they were about to give up all hope of solving that part of the mystery, Harry got excited.

The demon had been sniffing along Max’s back when something was found.

Cordelia suggested that Max remove his shirt so Harry could check more thoroughly, but didn’t miss the deepening frown on Angel’s face.

She had to admit to herself that the young alien leader of this small group had a chest well worth giving a second glance, maybe even a third and fourth glance as well!

Cordelia could see the criss-crossing of small, pale scars on the man’s back, especially in the area that had attracted Harry’s attention.

“Harry find ‘bug’. Harry have now?” The little demon looked very pleased with himself.

“Yes, Harry. We’ll get the ‘bug’ for you.”

Cordelia and Angel both stepped toward Max only to be interrupted by Michael.

“What exactly do you mean, you’ll ‘get the bug’ for Harry?”

“Oh.. sorry, Michael. Dovan demons eat various minerals like rocks and such. Harry finds silicon to be a special treat. Most tracking devices or small electronics have silicon in them. Angel can make a small cut with a fingernail and Harry will take care of removing the device. He won’t hurt Max. Harry’s very gentle.”

Michael sat back down as Max agreed. Angel slid a sharp thumbnail over the spot on the man’s back where Harry had located the ‘bug’. Max winced only slightly as the skin separated. The little demon went into action then, gently probing at the shallow incision with a very thin, fine, pointed tongue until he’d managed to curl it around a tiny object not much larger than the circumference of an eraser.

Dropping the object in Cordelia’s hand, Harry looked very proud for finding it and waited for his ‘reward’.

Max, Michael and Angel all looked at the object, then as they nodded, Cordelia held her hand out to Harry and he promptly slurped the item up and crunched happily at it.

“So, how would you get a tracking device under your skin, Max?”

Angel was curious about that fact as much as he was about the many fine scars on the alien’s back. As Angelus, Angel knew something about exquisite torture and the scars had the look of someone who had been tortured by an expert.

“I… was captured by a special F.B.I. unit a couple of years ago. They did some pretty nasty things to me, various kinds of torture and were going to vivisect me before Kyle’s dad, Michael and a shape-shifting alien rescued me. I guess they planted the thing in my back then. Thank you for getting rid of it.”

Cordelia glanced at the small demon.

“It was Harry’s pleasure.”

***********************************

Cordelia took Harry back to his own apartment, then returned to the hotel to find the guys clustered on the roof again, Angel ensconced in the stairwell, out of the sunlight.

She watched as Max and Michael took turns ‘working’ on the air conditioner. The work seemed to consist of holding their hands just a skin’s distance above the ravaged metal as it blurred and shimmered before seeming to move toward itself, closing the holes torn by the grenade.

During one of his breaks, Cordelia asked Max how they could do what she was seeing.

“We’re trying to remind the metal of its previous condition. When a material is formed into a shape, the molecular bonds have a memory of that shape and by encouraging those bonds to resume; the metal is almost healing itself. That’s about the best way I can think of to explain it, since we kinda just do it instead of understanding it as much. Actually it was Liz’s explanation. She was a science major.”

“Sounds as good an explanation as any. It working is the main concern. Why is it that you guys don’t seem to feel the heat so much? I’ve been feeling like a melted lump!”

“Roswell is in the desert, so we’re used to the heat. But it does seem hotter here with the moisture from the ocean.”

“Max, if you and Cordy are through discussing the weather, I’d kinda like you to take another turn… I’m about all out now and need to grab a bite to eat and a quick nap before my next turn. In fact, do you think you can show Liz how to do this? Have her kiss you while you’re working on it so she’ll get one of those ‘flashes’ of information?”

Michael looked as tired as he sounded. There was a new pallor under the normally tanned skin of his face that let Cordy and Angel know just how tired the sarcastic alien really was.

“Michael, I’m sorry! I’m just standing here talking.. Let me go make some sandwiches for everybody. Ah, you want one for a change Angel, or just your usual?”

It was as close to an apology as the vampire suspected he was going to get for a while at least.

“Yeah, I think I’d like one with my usual, please Cordelia. I don’t get any nourishment from the food, but you do make a very tasty sandwich. Not you yourself, cause .. I just wouldn’t know, I meant like normal sandwiches.. Oh hell. Yes, Cordy. I’d like one of whatever you’re making for them, please.”

Angel could tell from the odd looks that Max and Michael were giving him, as well as the rising color in the slender brunette’s face, that he was sticking his foot in his mouth again.

* That tiny excuse for a pair of shorts, and that top she almost has on ‘s’more like a handkerchief than a top… After that kiss last night, does she think I’m made of stone? *

Cordelia was definitely not the only one frustrated from the abortive ‘make-out’ session of the previous evening.

Angel tried to sigh quietly as he followed the others down stairs to the kitchen.

***************************

Evening was creeping into the Los Angeles landscape as the sun finally dipped below the horizon. The air conditioner on top of the Hyperion hotel looked pristine from casual observation. That look had cost several hours of intensive work on the part of Max, Michael, Isabel and Liz alternately, the entire day in fact.

Angel could only watch and fetch various items or food and drink while the sun blazed overhead, further simmering L.A. into its recent melted condition.

Cordelia made sandwiches when needed during the afternoon and otherwise had worked on the plans for the evening.

The brunette seer had hoped the tenacious ‘men-in-black’ that had been hunting the aliens from Roswell would show in force with the sudden disappearance of their homing device they’d planted under Max’s skin. However, to make certain they showed, she’d arranged an anonymous phone call from a payphone to the local F.B.I office.

Then everyone had managed to squeeze in a couple of hours worth of nap. They had to be ready, if not at their peak, for tonight’s plan… if the Roswell gang ever hoped to throw their pursuers off their trail.

They were finally as ready as they were going to be. Cordelia was the last one to head up the stairs to the roof, pausing to turn the thermostat higher then the current temperature in the hotel. As much as she wanted cool air, they couldn’t afford for the unit to start functioning prematurely. She headed to the roof behind the others.

The four aliens, or accidental alien in Liz’s case, took up positions around the air conditioning unit. Cordelia moved to stand with them as she added her demonic energy to their otherworldly energy in the final plunge to coax the unit back to life.

Cordelia hoped the others felt the changes deep inside the unit when she felt them. She knew from those small movements inside the metal shroud, they had success and if everything went as planned, everyone would have a good night’s sleep in a cool, comfortable room for the first time in what seemed like forever.

But as planned, the unit failed to rattle and wheeze into life. When working, it was a nosy beast.

Angel gave the slight whispered signal that let them know the waiting men were there as well, watching from the shadows of the nearby rooftops.

It was now or never.

“What in the hell is wrong with you half-breed freaks? You can’t even get a stupid a/c unit to work? No wonder those people are chasing you.. You probably gypped them too!

You all need to take your smelly alien carcasses out of here before I totally lose my temper and blow all of you up! I’m tired of you!”

Cordelia had turned to yell at the Roswell gang that stood with her on the roof.

“This was your stupid idea! What are we supposed to do if your idiot boss is too damned cheap to fix the thing properly? We told you we couldn’t do this, bitch!’

Michael yelled back right on cue.

The fight was on!

Insults flew through the air like sand in a storm. They waited only a couple of minutes into the yelling before the first punch was thrown.

That was all it took for the fight to be on fast and furious. Light and energy was tossed back and forth like so many colored balls, all lit from within. People fell to the roof, only to get back up and rejoin the fray.

Suddenly in a rapid move, Cordelia grabbed Isabel, pulling the blonde in close before tripping her.

Once the alien woman was flat on the rooftop, Cordelia stood still and simply started to glow. The air around her grew brighter and brighter until she outshone the streetlights, looking like a small nova fallen to earth.

The remaining aliens crumpled to the rooftop as well, before they also started to incandesce brighter and brighter then suddenly vanished.

The brunette ‘cooled’ down to her normal non-illuminated self to look around the roof with a satisfied glance.

She wasn’t to gloat for long though, as a dark shape hurtled toward her, slamming into her back as strong arms wrapped around her, one hand tangling in her short hair to jerk her head sideways as the mouthful of raggedly sharp teeth dipped quickly to her neck.

She managed a short, strangled sound, not even quite a gasp, before she slumped limp in the arms of her attacker.

However, moments later Cordelia stirred slightly, enough to reach into a pocket and pull out a sharply pointed stake, which, with the last remaining strength she could dredge up, she shoved into the chest of her attacker.

Both figures crumpled to the rooftop in an unmoving heap.

The hidden men watched through high-powered field glasses from the opposite roof. They saw the two fallen figures start to melt, spread out across the roof and finally disappear as if the slime had soaked into the gravel and tar of the roof.

Colonel Branson turned to the man beside him.

“They’re gone. All of them. The girl destroyed the aliens and that man we’d seen lurking in the shadows must have been some kind of vampire or maybe even a different kind of alien. He attacked her but she managed to kill him too at the last minute as she died.

They must have all been some type of monster since they just melted into the roof.”

“Let me look”

Agent Arnel took the glasses and gazed through them to the rooftop they had been observing for the last few days. Just as Branson had said, they were all gone. There seemed to be darker spots in a few places, like the people there had burned so quickly and so hot they’d scorched the roof, but hadn’t even had time to burst into flame. Where he’d seen the last two go down was just a damp looking discolored spot.

“They’re gone. Let’s get the men and get out of here. Now that this problem is over, we can go back to tracking those rumors about aliens in the New York subway. If there might even possibly be more of them, we can’t afford to ignore it. Who knows what they could do to us..”

The men packed up and cleared all their gear away over the next several hours.

********************************

Earlier on top of the Hyperion hotel:

Cordelia grabbed Isabel and pulled the blonde toward her, “Okay Izzy. Hit the ground and start that illusion. They’ll join you in a few seconds. You can do this.”

Isabel hit the roof as Cordelia started to glow.

The brunette kept tight control over her energy as she forced only light from her body, making sure no heat was generated by the dazzling display she was putting on.

“Now!” Isabel whispered mentally to the other Roswellians as they too ‘hit’ the roof.

She felt their energy merge with hers as they set up the illusion of their ‘bodies’ glowing like giant embers before they all ‘disappeared’.

They lay there for moments longer until Angel launched his ‘attack’ on Cordelia, then while the seer and vampire provided a distraction, Isabel and the rest of her ‘destroyed’ group, held their cover and crept off the roof to the sheltering stairwell.

At the right moment, when they saw Cordelia and Angel fall, they started casting the network of energy over them that would force any watchers to ‘see’ the two dissolve into nothingness. They held it in place, sweating, almost panting from the strain, until Angel and Cordelia could reach the stairway.

Finally able to let the illusions drop, a bone-weary group slipped down the stairs in the darkness to the kitchen for more sandwiches to boost their energy. The night wasn’t over just yet!

**********

Cordelia turned off her light show and waited for Angel to ‘attack’ her from behind.

She felt him thud into her back and his arms wrapped around her, pulling her close.

“I finally get to hold you again, Cordy. We need to do this without interruption.”

The dark-haired vampire whispered into her ear moments before they both ‘jerked’ her head back.

“No teeth!” she whispered back to him as she felt the caress of his lips on the smooth skin of her neck.

Angel cheated.

He ran blunt teeth down her neck, nipping slightly as he curled his tongue along her skin.

He felt Cordelia shiver against him, felt her nipples grow hard under his arm across her chest, heard the slight moan escape her lips as she slumped against him for mere moments before she reached into a pocket and wrapped her hand around the rubber stake he’d made for her that afternoon.

With a struggle that was all too real, Cordelia twisted in Angel’s arms, moving her neck away from the feel of his lips on her neck and the sensations that made iron control necessary to keep her from pulling the vampire into a deep soul-searching kiss.

Instead she slammed the rubber stake into his chest, feeling it slide along his ribs under the dark shirt where it was gripped between his arm and chest as they both fell.

Angel had wrapped himself around Cordelia as much as possible to try and protect her from what was still going to be a hard fall.

He heard the breath whoosh out of her as they hit the roof.

It was her turn to play dirty as they both tried to fall back slightly as would be natural for two limp bodies. Cordelia made sure her hand fell perilously close to Angel’s groin.

She couldn’t move away or closer and neither could he until their parts were finished.

Seer and vampire lay there waiting for the whisper that would let them know it was safe for them to move.

“You know you’re gonna pay for this later.” Angel whispered close to her ear, his voice barely a breath of sound.

“You’re paying now for my neck… Fair is fair.”

Cordelia managed to taunt him in her own barely heard voice. She’d uttered the words with never a movement of her slightly parted lips.

“Now!”

The sound echoed in her head. She moved away from Angel, grabbing his hand to tug at him, letting him know it was time to go.

They reached the dark stairwell already filled with people, then everyone groped their way downstairs in the darkness.

*************

“So what if they decide to come inside to investigate further?”

Max voiced the question Cordelia asked earlier of Angel.

“I locked the front doors earlier, but right now, we need to grab the food and drinks and get up the other stairs to the un-used rooms. We’re gonna have to stay there for a few hours just in case.”

Angel led the way, picking up the first basket of food and beverage, turning toward the inside staircase.

He and Cordy had carried blankets and pillows up earlier, after she’d asked the same question and he’d decided this was the best answer.

They had gotten to the upper floor and into a furniture-filled room, creeping under the broken wood and rusting metal items to a clear space in the back corner. They had light from a shuttered window that had lost several of the louvers from its frame.

No sooner had they settled down then the front door was forced open with an audible noise.

They heard footsteps and voices as they lay and nibbled their sandwiches.

**************

The lower floors had been quiet for almost three hours before Angel finally ventured out of their hiding place, moving silently in the shadows as if he were simply a darker part of those same shadows.

With the stealth he’d developed over more than two centuries, the vampire eased his way through the building, into the rooms, up the roof stairs and down to the basement. His enhanced vampiric hearing detected no sounds out of the ordinary. No telltale breathing, or shifting of position in the darkness that permeated the hotel.

Sliding into demonic face, he could see through the darkness to tell that the men had looked through a few items here and there, but over all hadn’t disturbed much.

They’d have Harry back over tomorrow to check for any ‘bugs’ but for now… Angel felt they’d be safe for the night.

After the announcement that everyone could go to their rooms for the night, sighs of relief were heard as the seven cramped people inched out of their hiding place and walked wearily to their rooms two floors below.

Sleep was very welcome and quick in coming.

**********************************

Breakfast the next morning was a quiet affair with everyone still sleep deprived from the previous night’s events.

By unspoken agreement, after the meal, the current occupants of the hotel returned to their rooms for a long nap.

Cordelia stopped at the thermostat on her way up the stairs, pushing the lever downwards.

A thrill shivered up her back as she heard the huge air conditioning unit on the roof click through the wires as the compressor finally came on again. Moments later, cool air blew from the vents and wafted across her face.

With a much lighter step, Cordy almost skipped up the stairs, already dreaming of blissful sleep between cooled sheets.

**********************************

Kyle had shared Isabel’s room with her ever since their first romantic rendezvous earlier.

Waking first from the afternoon siesta in which everyone had indulged, Kyle turned to look at the sleeping woman, her head resting next to his shoulder, her near arm flung across his waist.

The emotions he felt for this beautiful blonde woman surged through him and he dipped his head to gently kiss her lips, her closed eyelids, her temples and back to her lips.

This time he was rewarded with those same lips kissing him back as her arm tightened around him.

The resulting actions followed their expected course.

Afterwards, as a very satisfied Kyle held an extremely sated Isabel in his arms, he mentally thanked Michael for his previous advice on how to handle the alien energy that was even a part of the alien hybrid human’s lovemaking. In fact, the compact brown haired alien had given Kyle tips on how to turn that energy around and use it to advantage, which Kyle had done, and by the look on Isabel’s face, had done very well indeed.

He reached to brush the hair from her damp face before brushing his lips across hers again.

“Kyle, you’ve exhausted me. As much as I want to, I just can’t go again right now.”

He could hear the desire for him in her voice as well as the anguish that she was too tired to make love with him again. Cupping her cheek in his hand, Kyle reassured her.

“Izzy, as much as being with you just makes me crazy and want you that much more, again wasn’t what I had in mind.” He saw the puzzled expression form across her features.

“Iz, remember the other night when Michael interrupted us?”

“Yes, and I could have cheerfully strangled him, brother or not!”

“It’s okay, honey. I had wanted to tell you something and by waiting until this situation was over, I actually feel better about telling you now.”

Kyle sat up; pulling Isabel with him, then tucked the sheet around them in the cool air of the room. He took her hand in both of his before looking into her beautiful eyes.

“I wanted to tell you that I love you, Isabel. We’ve been friends for a long time now, once I stopped being such an ass about where you guys were from and all… I was scared, and I was attracted to you from the first. I just didn’t know how much until that night with the car.. when we went driving around, when you changed the color of my boss’s Viper to keep me out of trouble… I finally realized that I felt a lot more for you than I knew and I wanted to kiss you even then.”

He held up his hand to lay his fingers across her lips, stilling the protests he knew waited behind them.

“I know you’re still married to Jessie and I know you miss him. But I’m here, Izzy and they’re looking for me too. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere except with you guys.. Especially you, Iz. So even though I can’t make the offer I’d like to make to you, I’ll make the only one I can.

Isabel Evans, I, Kyle Valenti love you with all my heart and if you’ll accept me in any capacity, I pledge to remain with you, to love you, to support you and be with you in every way possible for the rest of our lives, however long that may be.”

Isabel could only look at Kyle, sitting there completely nude in front of her except for the artfully draped sheet. But she knew every line, every plane of that body under the sheet and realized that while she still cared deeply for Jessie, that they could never work things out between them. The gap was too large, there were too many lies that even though set straight, would never disappear from their lives. She just couldn’t see Jessie being willing to endure the difficulties and hardships Kyle had sailed right through without complaint for the last months, since they’d had to leave Roswell, with men hot in pursuit of them, ready to kill them all. While she could never reveal herself to file for divorce from Jessie, he was as gone from her life now as if they’d divorced or as if he’d died. She never wanted him to come to any harm and finally accepted he’d not have lived through the life they were all sharing now.

Isabel looked into the deep blue eyes of the man who accepted her totally for who and what she was, who’d loved her body with that complete acceptance and made a decision.

“Kyle.. You know I’ll always care about Jessie and that I can’t get a divorce from him. I’d have to reveal myself to do that. But if you’ll accept me like I am, the answer is yes, Kyle. I care about you, I love you and that’s something I never expected to happen. I’m happy being with you. I’ve been so glad you decided to come with us over and over during this forced exile we’re in… What offer would you have made if you could have?”

Isabel had to know the answer before she could tell him the rest of what was in her heart.

“I think you know, Izzy. I have nothing to give you except love, but I would ask you to be my wife if I could.”

“And if you could ask, Kyle.. I’d say yes. Ask me anyway.”

There was a quiet dignified pleading note in her voice.

Kyle cupped her face in both hands as he looked into her blue eyes.

“Isabel Evans, will you be my wife?”

“Yes, Kyle. In all the ways that I can, in all the ways that matter, I’ll be your wife.”

Isabel covered his hands with her own and pulled him into a long, sweet, lingering kiss that rapidly turned into the ‘again’ they didn’t think they could manage.

***********************************

Cordelia was awake finally. She slipped into the bathroom she was currently sharing with Max and Liz, hurriedly took a shower then headed downstairs to the kitchen of the hotel.

Pulling out items here and there, the brunette put together a meal that could take care of its self in the oven while she made a salad.

Dinner was almost ready when Angel slipped up behind Cordelia, wrapping his arms around her like he had done on the roof the night before, ducking his head to brush his lips along her neck.

“Angel…. Don’t!”

“Why not? You liked it on the rooftop. I enjoyed your reaction, Cordelia. I enjoyed having you in my arms. We were going somewhere with this the other night. What happened?”

The tall slender brunette relaxed and leaned back in the vampire’s arms, covering his hands with hers.

“It was just so hot, Angel. I mean. I wanted to.. But it was so horribly hot and I was so miserable in all the heat.”

“The air conditioner is working again, Cordy. It’s cool in here now. No more heat. You wanted to..? What, Cordy? What did you want?”

Angel’s deep voice whispered into her ear, his breath as he spoke, tickling the side of her neck where his lips had caressed her earlier.

Cordelia was playing with fire and knew it, yet didn’t seem to be able to stop herself.

She turned in Angel’s arms until she was facing him. Raising her arms to encircle his neck, she slowly pulled his head down, her eyes never leaving his mouth.

“This… This is what I wanted. This and more…”

With those words, Cordelia covered Angel’s lips with her own, her tongue seeking admittance to his mouth.

As she kissed him, she felt, rather than saw him change and moments later she nicked the tip of her tongue on a wickedly sharp fang.

Cordelia felt him shift back to his human visage as he caught her tongue, sucking gently on it. She could taste her own blood as it trickled from the cut.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she should be grossed out, or panicked, something other than as incredibly aroused as she was right that moment. Cordelia wanted to drag him back upstairs, rip his clothes off and attack him.

She was debating if she should or not, kissing him all the while…

“Hey, something smells really good down here… Oh, sorry! I didn’t know we’d be interrupting.”

Max and Liz stood just inside the kitchen. Cordelia could see Michael and Maria, and a beaming Kyle and Isabel behind them.

The brunette stepped out of Angel’s arms, automatically straightening her hair.

“Ah.. It’s okay. We.. Ah, we were just talking.. You know.”

The obvious lie earned her several sly knowing smiles from the Roswell gang.

“We could go away.. if you’re not through talking just yet?”

Isabel suggested in her most innocent voice.

“No. No, we’re finished… talking. Dinner is almost ready if you guys are hungry?”

Cordelia bustled around the kitchen, getting dinner ready to cover her embarrassment.

Angel leaned back on the counter, his mind whirling with plans.

*****************************

Later after dinner but before sunrise, Angel went to pick up Harry. The small blue demon checked the hotel over and didn’t find any ‘bugs’ planted by the mysterious men. To appease the little demon, Angel gave him a small handful of computer chips he kept just for that purpose.

Since the hotel seemed to be safe, Cordelia took Harry back to his apartment the sun now shining in the sky. While she was gone, Angel made a few calls and found what he was seeking.

“Max, I found a van for you guys to use. A good friend of ours is willing to give it to you. I told him just enough of your situation to convince him of the urgency. He’ll be bringing it by in about an hour or so, if you want to gather your things and leave. You’re welcome to stay, of course.”

The Roswell gang all looked at each other, then back at the dark haired vampire. He caught their concern at not being able to say goodbye to Cordelia and put them at ease.

“She’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

***********************************

David McNabb pulled into the covered parking garage almost exactly an hour later.

Cordelia had been back long enough for the women to wind up in a tearful group hug, all of them talking at once as they told each other how much they’d be missed and the promises to keep in touch.

Angel and the guys had exchanged farewells too.

All in all, it was a tearful preparation for the inevitable parting.

Isabel finally managed to pull Cordelia to one side for a few words in private.

“Thank you so much for pushing me to go to Kyle. I don’t know how I can ever tell you just how much I appreciate it.”

“I didn’t push you, Izzy. I just kinda nudged. You were ready to go to him. I’m just glad the two of you are happy now.”

“I noticed you took my advice on that same subject. You looked awfully involved this morning. Is that as far as you’ve managed to get with him?”

“Ah.. It’s not his fault, Izzy. It’s mine.. and this heat. But I’m planning to make it up to him. I.. ah, finally figured out that I’m not just his friend and I want more than for him to be just a friend.”

Isabel impulsively hugged the brunette, then released Cordelia before reaching a hand into the bag the blonde alien carried over her shoulder.

“I hope you’re as happy as I am with Kyle, Cordy. I want to give you this. Don’t laugh now. It’s special to me and I want you to have it to remember me in between times when we get to talk. We will stay in touch!”

There were a few more conversations, a lot more hugs, then the Roswell gang piled into the new Dodge van they had been given and they were finally on their way.

Angel, Cordelia and David waved until the van was out of sight.

******************************

Angel had spent several hours traversing the underground tunnels as he did some special shopping and arrangements for the evening. He’d asked Cordelia to come back over that evening after she had gone to her apartment to check on phantom Dennis.

The brunette entered the hotel lobby wearing a close fitting, deep wine colored dress. It had spaghetti straps over her slim tanned shoulders, and although it buttoned up the front, the buttons were undone to mid thigh. She wore wedge-heeled sandals with slender ankle straps. Even with her height, she could get away with the heels, as Angel was taller still.

Angel also had dressed up for the evening in black linen slacks so closely fitted that you knew there was nothing but vampire under them. They were paired with a deep burnished gold silk shirt that brought out golden glints in his hair and golden flecks in the deep brown of his eyes.

He took Cordelia by the hand without a word and led her into the small dining room they never used as part of the hotel.

A small table for two had been set up with a snowy white tablecloth that puddled softly on the floor. Two places had been set and candles had been scattered around the room. They cast a golden, wavering light that deepened the shadows and highlighted the occasional edge around the room.

A single red rose lay across the plate in front of the seat into which Angel handed Cordelia.

Settling into the chair, the brunette looked up at the vampire, her eyes round with surprise and amazement.

“Angel… This is beautiful!”

“Thank you, Cordelia. So are you. I wanted this to be a special evening for you. You’ve, uh… worked so hard recently.”

Angel turned away to the buffet and uncovered two plates, which he placed on the burnished chargers on the table before settling into his own seat.

He’d poured the wine into their glasses just as Cordelia had arrived.

The brunette looked at the tempting lobster thermador, fluffy saffron rice and the crisp salad garnished with sliced kiwi.

“Angel? Did you make all of this?”

“Well, I made the dessert, but I have to admit that I had the dinner delivered.”

“It’s okay, Angel. It’s beautiful and very sweet of you to do this. What did you make for dessert?”

Cordelia was puzzled at the effort Angel had put into this dinner for her. It didn’t surprise her that he’d ordered it. But she was amazed that he had made dessert. She had no idea he knew how to cook!

“I made chocolate pudding. I’ve got some topping for it, though. That’s okay isn’t it?”

Forcing the chuckle away, Cordelia assured the worried vampire that the dessert would be fine.

They ate the lovely dinner by candlelight and made small talk. Angel removed the plates when they had finished and served her chocolate pudding in a cut glass dish with a small mountain of cool whip on top of the dark chocolate.

Cordelia nibbled at it and sipped more of the pale apricot colored wine that left a taste of peaches across her tongue.

When it was obvious that dinner was over, Angel removed the dessert glasses and helped Cordelia from her chair. He continued to hold her hand as he led her up the stairs to the door of his room before he turned to face her.

“I’d like for you to come in, Cordy. Will you?”

Knowing he was actually asking much more of her, Cordelia tried to answer but the words stuck in her throat. She swallowed convulsively before she could finally agree.

The dark haired vampire opened the door of his room.

Hundreds of candles filled the room with the scent of warm wax, a hint of some elusive fragrance, and golden light from every flat surface.

The bed was turned down invitingly and she could see he’d made it with deep midnight blue silk sheets, under a white silk duvet-covered comforter.

Cordelia turned back to see him watching her intently, waiting to see what she would do.

She didn’t leave him in suspense for very long as she slid both arms around his neck, pulling him down to press her lips to his.

With a groan from deep inside, Angel pulled her to him as he kissed her as if she were a fine wine of which he couldn’t get enough.

Cordelia pressed closer to him, close enough to crawl inside his skin.

She tried to set her purse down on the floor, but only managed to drop it instead. Something shining and silver tumbled from the open top to lie on the floor.

Breaking the kiss for her to breath, Angel glimpsed the corner of the object and knelt to pick it up, handing it to Cordelia with a questioning look for the small strange mirror.

She took it with a very shaky hand and placed it back inside her purse, closing it securely this time.

“Isabel gave it to me before she left. They had healed a little girl a short while back, and the girl gave it to Izzy. She said it was very special to her because of that and wanted me to have it to remember her by between phone calls. Surely you don’t think either of us would deliberately buy a little pink plastic mirror with the PowerPuff girls on it, do you?”

Angel grinned and shook his head as Cordelia sat her purse in the chair, then turned to undo the rest of the buttons on her dress, very slowly, her eyes never leaving Angel’s face as he watched her.

When the dress was completely unbuttoned, she let it slide from her shoulders, reveling the little strapless sheer teddy she’d gotten that afternoon to wear for him tonight.

At the sight of her tanned body through the dark, sheer fabric, Angel caught a deep breath he didn’t need. In the depths of his eyes, there was a darkness that had nothing to do with being a vampire, or hunger, and had everything to do with being a man looking at a beautiful woman he loved.

In two steps, Angel had her in his arms again, lifting her to carry her to the waiting bed.

***************************

Quite some time later, Cordelia pulled Angel’s head down to her neck as he continued to plunge into her body, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist.

“Now! Now you can taste…”

Moments later sharp fangs carefully grazed her neck, then she felt his tongue curl around the tiny twin punctures as the world exploded behind her eyes and coursed through her body in a nerve-jumping, skin-twitching rush that nearly took her breath away even as a pale glow oozed from her skin to envelope the lovers.

Angel’s mouth pulled harder for only seconds at her neck before he threw his head back, his spine arched toward her as he followed her into the dazzling abyss.

*********************

It was very late night or very early morning depending on which end of the clock you preferred.

Cordelia stirred from sleep to find the unfamiliar weight of a very masculine arm draped across her.

Memory returned in a rush as she woke fully and a smile played across her face as her fingers found their way to carefully twitch a lock of hair away from Angel’s forehead.

He caught her hand, pulling it to his lips to kiss the fingertips before releasing them.

“ ‘Morning.”

“Hi. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. I was in that half awake, half asleep stage, just thinking about last night.”

“You were wonderful, Angel. Don’t take this the wrong way, but… how? You’re still you.”

“One of my stops yesterday was to an old friend. Remember that psychic prophylactic you read about?”

“You mean we can… All we want? And no ‘grrr’?”

“That’s what it means.” Angel pulled himself up slightly in the bed, cradling Cordy on his bare shoulder.

“It also means I can tell you that I love you.”

The words were out quickly without being rushed. He waited for them to sink in, for her to realize what he’d said.

“You love me? Angel, are you sure? After B…”

The vampire laid his fingertips across her lips.

“That was my past. This is now, Cordy. I’ve been fighting it, how I feel about you… for a while but finally had to accept how I feel.”

“I knew I did a while back, but I didn’t want to say anything in case you still felt… Or if we couldn’t…”

“Cordelia, you knew you did what? Tell me, please?”

His voice was soft, pleading with her, hoping she felt the same as he did about her.

“I loved you, Angel. I knew I loved you.”

Angel pulled Cordelia into a kiss before sliding back down into the silk sheets.

It was still a long time until sunrise.

******************************

Max had taken his time driving. They weren’t in any hurry and no one was chasing them for the first time in months. They’d stopped at a little diner, had a casual meal, walked down to the ocean for a while and waded in the surf. They felt free for the first time in years.

Finally, they had to get back on the road to find somewhere to sleep for the night.

Michael pulled out the California map they’d picked up and continued to look at it for a few minutes after he advised Max of the closest motel listed.

“We should find a nice quiet little place to stop for a while, for a few weeks or so. You know, rest, do a few odd jobs and pick up a bit of money. There is a little place up the coast here that sounds nice. Let’s go there.”

“Sounds good, Michael. What’s the name of it?”

“Sunnydale.”

“Sunnydale it is then.”

Gillian Silverlight 8/11/2002